This invention relates to baking equipment, and more particularly to a method of winding a sheet of dough on a dough reel; to a dough sheeter having a dough-sheet winding device, the dough sheeter being of the type equipped with two conveyors disposed on the near side and the far side, respectively, of a pair of cylinders, each conveyor having a frame, two rollers, and a conveyor belt, and the dough-sheet winding device being affixed to the frame of one of the aforementioned conveyors; and to a dough-sheet winding device for a dough sheeter, of the type having a dough reel and a conveyor belt intended for receiving and conveying the dough sheet to the dough reel, which conveyor belt runs over a drive roller, a support roller, and a guide roller and, in a stand-by position of the guide roller, rests in at least one partial area against the dough reel.
West German Patent No. 2,718,383 discloses a dough-sheet reel on a dough-sheeting plant equipped with two conveyors disposed on the near side and the far side, respectively, of a pair of cylinders, each having a frame, two rollers, and a conveyor belt, a chassis with side plates being fixed to the frame of one of the mentioned conveyors, which plates have recesses for axle parts of a reel which are aligned to one another in transverse direction and open at the top, there being a conveyor belt driven at high speed from this one conveyor and intended to take over a sheet of dough delivered thereon, the two belt-sides of which are supported on a support roller disposed beneath the reel and opposite it and mounted stationary on the side plates, the conveyor belt further running over a guide roll which is disposed on a swivel support mounted somewhat beneath the support roller on the side plates in such a way that when the swivel support is swung up into a stand-by position, the upper belt-side, starting from the location at which it runs through between the support roller and the reel, winds around the reel over about one-fourth of its circumference in order to initiate the winding of a sheet of dough resting thereon, and a sensing and locking arm mounted on the swivel support, which arm, in the stand-by position of the swivel support, (a) co-operates with a snap member fixed on the adjacent side plate in order to keep the swivel support in the stand-by position and (b) senses the height of the reel in order to detach itself from the snap member when the reel has taken on a predetermined number of dough-sheet thicknesses and thus to release the swivel support, which can then be swung back out of the stand-by position in order that the further winding of the sheet of dough on the upwardly travelling reel may take place unhindered.
Drawbacks of this prior art dough-sheet winding device are, firstly, that the swivel support must be manually moved from a resting position into a stand-by position and, furthermore, that when thick sheets of dough, e.g., between 4 and 10 mm, are being wound, the trip angle is reached before the first turn is completed, or else the abruptly increasing space requirement leads to blocking of the dough reel. When thin sheets of dough between, say, 1 and 4 mm are being wound up, there are already too many turns on the dough reel when the trip angle is reached. The turns are then too tightly superposed, whereby the dough tends to stick together, resulting in problems when the sheet of dough is unwound.
It is therefore the object of this invention to provide an improved method of winding a sheet of dough on a dough reel, an improved dough sheeter having a dough sheet winding device, and an improved dough-sheet winding device, which method and devices do not have the drawbacks of the above-mentioned prior art.
A further object of the invention is to provide a method and devices whereby, when thick sheets of dough are being wound, the swivel support is automatically swung away after about one revolution in order to provide the necessary space for winding the thick sheet of dough on the dough reel.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a method and devices whereby, when thin sheets of dough are being wound, the swivel support swings away after about two revolutions so that the sheet of dough can be wound without hindrance, and the turns do not lie too tightly on one another as with the prior art device.
To this end, in the method according to the present invention, after the last sheeting pass of the sheet of dough between the cylinders, this pass is detected by a sensor means, and the sheet of dough is then fed by a conveyor to a conveyor belt of a dough-sheet winding device and wound on a dough-reel, a guide roller connected to a swivel support being pivoted from a resting position into a stand-by position after detection of the last sheeting pass of the sheet of dough by the sensor means, and after an adjustable time-lag which starts to run upon the detection of the last sheeting pass by the sensor means, the guide roller connected to the swivel support being pivoted from the stand-by position into the resting position, the conveyor belt pressing the sheet of dough against the dough reel in the stand-by position.
In the dough sheeter according to this invention, of the type initially mentioned, there is a conveyor belt driven by a conveyor and intended to take over a sheet of dough, at least one belt-side of which conveyor belt is supported on a support roller disposed beneath a reel and permanently mounted, the conveyor belt further running around a guide roller disposed on the swivel support pivotable by a motor in such a way that the upper belt-side of the conveyor belt winds around the reel on part of the circumference thereof in order to initiate the winding of the sheet of dough resting on the conveyor belt, and the swivel support is pivotable by the motor into a resting position after an adjustable winding phase of the sheet of dough onto the reel in such a way that the further winding of the sheet of dough onto the reel can take place unhindered.
In the dough-sheet winding device according to the invention, a swivel support connected to the guide roller and operatable by a motor is disposed swivellably from the stand-by position into a resting position.